Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Monday, November 25, 2002 Trash and I normally start our Christmas shopping sometime in the middle of December. If you’re wondering how we get it all done in a couple of weeks, let me clarify: we’re shopping for next Christmas. This is one of the areas in which Trash and I differ. She’s an organizer, a planner, a doer. I’m a rester, a hanger-outer, then a flailer-around-at-the-last-second-in-abject-panic. Don’t think for a second that I don’t appreciate her organizational abilities, because they leave me more time for resting and hanging out in the long run, what with the abject panic in which to flail around at the last second having been exponentially reduced by her planning skills. Plus it’s so much easier to do what they call “enjoying the season” after she’s bought and wrapped all the gifts and neither of us has to worry about it any more. And when I say “enjoy the season,” I’m referring to the time of year when the landscape is transformed, when everyone smiles at each other a little more easily, when the air itself feels magical. Especially here in Minnesota. Yes, I’m talking about spring. No, I’m exaggerating a little bit. But it’s not unheard-of for us to be finished with our Christmas shopping by Halloween. Then all we have left to do is go through and write down what we have for everyone. Of course, Trash loves this part so much that I suspect her of hiding the list from me as soon as we’re finished so we can do it twenty or thirty more times before the twenty-fourth. She denies it, but I can smell the paper on her breath. Of course, I can’t really complain when everybody else is spending their December screaming from store to store in mounting panic and I’m on my third nap of the day. Not this year, though. I don’t know how it happened, but the holidays totally sneaked up on us this year. One minute we had thirteen shopping months until Christmas, and the next we were making Thanksgiving plans with no gifts purchased except the seemingly random contents of a few boxes from Amazon. Cue the flailing-around-at-the-last-second-in-abject-panic, times two. But it’s a lot better than it might have been, because we’re doing almost all of our shopping online this year. Trash pilots the computer while I sit behind her as her RIO, reading off of our list. Then we keep going until we reach the vendor’s free-shipping threshold and move on. Then a couple of days later, a box of crap appears on our deck and we get to find out what we got. It’s like many, many Christmases for the price of one. And it’s so, so much better than loading into the car, driving around to a bunch of stores we hate, looking at a bunch of stuff we hate, getting it all crammed into those maddeningly rustly plastic bags that we hate, loading it all into the car which we’ve come to hate, driving it all back to the house that we now hate because it’s completely clogged up with stuff for other people, who we hate, and fight about who’s going to wrap everything because now we hate each other. Seriously, shopping online is the way to go. Plus, have you ever tried taking a Solitaire break in the women’s department? Nobody respects our nice, neat rows of cards on the floor when they’re clawing at each other over the last pair of electric slippers. Basically, the convenience is making up for the time we wasted. We’re feeling a little stressed because we’re behind. But we’re only behind by our standards. And the Internet is helping us catch up quickly. After we’re done, I’m going to ask Trash to make up a macro for next year so we can buy everything for everyone with one mouse click. She’s clever. She’ll figure out a way to do that. Click. Nap. Happy Holidays. * * * By the way, if you're planning on shopping on Amazon, go there via this link. That way all your stuff is free. No, it's not, really, but that way a part of your gift-buying dollar goes towards supporting a website that really deserves it. And then I get all of my stuff free. Okay, not that last part. posted by M. Giant 3:34 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:
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